Child Temperament as an Antecedent of Coparenting Quality

• In Event: Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Topic - Family Context & Processes

Abstract

Coparenting, the way that parents work together and coordinate responsibilities in their mutually shared role of parenting a child, has significant implications for child adjustment (Talbot & McHale, 2004). Research has shown that high levels of conflict and low levels of coordination between coparents have been linked to externalizing behaviors in children, and that coparenting quality accounts for unique variance in child adjustment even after controlling for certain aspects of family functioning (Jones et al., 2003; Dopkins-Stright & Neitzel, 2003). Given its developmental significance, identifying the antecedents of coparenting quality is a key research direction.
While researchers have outlined potential antecedents of coparenting quality, little is known about the specific child attributes that may alter coparenting behavior over time. To address this gap, we will focus on child temperament as a predictor of coparenting quality. Temperament is understood as a child’s tendency to behave or react in certain ways to different stimuli and conditions (Rothbart & Bates, 2007). Although little is known about temperamental antecedents of coparenting quality, theory and research on child predictors of parental caregiving and psychological adjustment support the potential value of this claim (Neitzel & Stright, 2004).
The temperamental dimension of surgency is consistently associated with parenting difficulties: for example, when infants are high in surgency, mothers engage in fewer caregiving behaviors; and when children exhibit high levels of surgency, a strong association is seen between maternal negativity and child maladjustment (Planalp et al., 2013; Chen et al., 2014). In addition, there may be other temperamental characteristics that have a different impact on coparenting – characteristics that may not place the same strain on coparents, or may be linked with improvements in coparenting. For example, in one study, when infants were rated highly on positive affect, they showed lower levels of later parent-reported conduct problems; and in another study, researchers found that when children displayed high levels of fear, parents exhibited higher levels of warmth (Lahey et al., 2008; Kochanska et al., 2004). Accordingly, in the current study, we examined the relative roles of three child temperament characteristics – surgency, positive affect, and fearful distress – as predictors of subsequent change in two central dimensions of coparenting quality – conflict and cohesion.
Participants included 243 racially- and economically-diverse families (mother, mother’s partner, and child; 48% black; 69% receiving public assistance). Families visited the laboratory during two annual measurement occasions. At Wave 1, 4-year-old children participated in several tasks from the Laboratory Temperament Assessment Battery (Lab-TAB; Goldsmith et al., 1999), and coders provided observational ratings of children’s temperament dimensions. At Waves 1 and 2, coparenting behavior was assessed through observational ratings of a family interaction task (task adapted from Westerman & Schonholtz, 1993).
Results of a cross-lagged, autoregressive SEM test are presented in Figure 1. Findings indicated that higher levels of surgency in children predicted lower levels of coparenting cohesion, and higher levels of fearful distress in children predicted lower levels of coparenting conflict. In addition, higher levels of positive affect approached significance for prediction for lower levels of coparenting conflict.

Authors

• Lucia Q. Parry, Franklin & Marshall College
  Presenting Author

• Patrick Davies, University of Rochester
  Non-Presenting Author